How This Government Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love ID Cards

A new ‘virtual’ ID Card scheme and Identity Assurance database are quietly being introduced by stealth as the government presses forward with plans to make all public services ‘digital by default’.

Just like under Blair’s scheme, the new virtual ID Cards will not be mandatory (yet) but will be required to access all government services including benefits, tax assessment, the NHS, and possibly even services provided by local councils.

Whilst for most people the new ID system will be ‘virtual’, meaning that it will be accessed by smart phones or internet connections, tender documents suggest that those who are not online may be forced to use physical ID cards to access services.

Defenders of the new scheme claim this is nothing like the ID Card and National Identity Register introduced by the last government because information will be held by private companies and not centrally by the state. However with Theresa May desperately trying to introduce new powers to snoop on emails and social networking, the idea that government will not be able to access the new database is beyond naive. All the involvement of the private sector means is that unaccountable private sector sharks will also have access to personal information.

With companies like facebook rumoured to be involved, and the recent awarding of an ‘identity assurance’ contract to credit reference company Experion, this suggests that data-harvesting could go way beyond anything contemplated by Blair’s band of government busy-bodies.

Somewhat predictably it will be benefit claimants and disabled people who are used as guinea pigs for the new database. Claims for both Universal Credit and the upcoming replacement disability benefit Personal Independence Payment, will be the first benefits to be digital by default.

Tender documents also reveal that DWP access to the database is being built into the new provision stating that ‘data attributes’ may be “be requested by the DWP and provided by the service provider: e.g. verified telephone numbers, history of addresses, etc. The initial service should also meet the following requirements:”

All benefit claimants, including those on in work benefits such as tax credits and housing benefits, will be need to choose an ‘identity assurance’ provider which will then allow them to access Universal Credit. 21 million people are expected to be affected by the change to the benefits system and entered onto the Universal Credit database – which is the most extensive data gathering system ever devised by a government.

Universal Credit will not just collect details of income on a monthly basis, but will contain details on health conditions, employment, job seeking activity, housing, family make up, bank details, childcare, tenancy agreements, and personal information such as dates of birth and National Insurance numbers. There have even been recommendations that this database could be linked to NHS prescription records (PDF), whilst the launch of Universal Jobmatch is giving Jobcentres unprecedented access to spy on how and when claimants look for work.

People on Self-Assessed tax are likely to be the next group who will be forced to sign up to an ‘identity assurance’ provider to fill in tax returns. Eventually this will be extended to cover all government services, including the NHS (PDF). Signing up to ‘Identity Assurance’ will soon be necessary even to make an appointment with your GP if this Government get their way.

The feeble excuse for this mass data gathering operation is that people currently have to use different passwords to access different online services. This flimsy justification falls apart simply by pointing out that people are well within their rights to use the same password to sign up for different things – a hardly unique concept amongst internet users.

The real reason is a long term plan to make thousands of public sector workers redundant by abolishing any face to face relationships between citizens and the state. And of course, with government eavesdroppers GCHQ having been involved in designing the Universal Credit system, the spooks will have a field day as they have new powers to trawl through huge amounts of detail about people’s very personal lives.

There are even plans to use ‘voice biometrics’ as part of identity assurance, meaning providers, and ultimately the state, will have access to the individual voice print of everyone using the system. Whilst this technology is untested on anything like this scale, this could, in theory, be used to track people’s phone conversations simply by scanning the airwaves for individual ‘voice prints’.

Before they became the enabling arm of the Conservative Party many Lib Dems were quick to point out that it’s not just what a current government might do with a national identity database, but any future administration. Whilst it may seem difficult to conceive of a worse government than this one, as the neo-liberal bandwagon rolls on ever more authoritarian measures will be necessary to stamp out resistance to the suffering caused by naked capitalism. A free market does not mean free people.

And that’s why Big Brother is back, just this time hidden beneath a cloak of Tory deception and Lib Dem spinelessness.

If they can get a majority in the House of Commons they’ll just amend the Data Protection Act to allow them to do anything they want. Hence the importance of voting at every election to keep the bastards out.

They will get their benefits stopped becasue they will be arrested and then proven to be fit enough to riot but not to work.🙂 We all know there are many positions to fill in the capacity of professional rioter, but you are exempt if you have a crumbling backbone. Of course people have slowly become like sheep and we all know that sheep are taken to slaughter!.

Moi, you shouldn’t “inciting” anyone – it is a SERIOUS criminal offence, it could get naive folk in a LOT of trouble. Anyway, you seem to have a thing about “rioting” as if it is some sort of panacea, a solution to YOUR problems. But YOU don’t want to do the actual “rioting” – you want the lazy and the work-shy to do it🙂 , the ones that if it wasn’t for them you would be receiving more of whatever benefits you are on – because you have a ready-made excuse, “crumbling backbone” or whatever. DO NOT encourage others to do what you are prepared to do yourself! Oh, and good luck with those riots at the weekend everyone, would love to be there, but the other side of town is too far away, will be washing my hair. PS not “getting at you”, its just the way you come over🙂

Look Yoof, you don’t know me and i don’t know you but in one post i can already make greater opinions on YOU than you have been able of me, the only difference is i keep them to myself because they would be of no importance here. I do strongly suggest you put your glasses on and read between the lines, if my attempt at black humour does not float your boat then maybe your opinion that people out there living on the edge are potentially naive enough to be held by the hand along a path of rioting is indeed insulting and a typical opinion of the type of working middle class stooge the government would be happy to welcome with open arms. We don’t need your platitudes here pal nor your smug facitiousness. Good real people are suffering and through no fault of their own, You probably have posters of the tory party stuck all around your bedroom walls. Is that a signed photo of IDS i see?.. “with love, Duncs”.🙂

“There are even plans to use ‘voice biometrics’ as part of identity assurance, meaning providers, and ultimately the state, will have access to the individual voice print of everyone using the system.”

Have they not seen the 1986 movie, “The Fly” starring Jeff Goldblum? In this movie, as Goldblum’s Seth Brundle character metamorphasises into a 6.5ft fly, his human vocal chords become more and more redundant. This results in his voice not being recognised by the advanced voice recognition system on his computer and as such is not allowed to log on.

Okay, The Fly is a Hollwood movie. However, art often imitates life. What if I have a cold or sore throat that changes my voice making it hoarse? What if I LOSE my voice? And of course anyone using voice recognition software on their own PC’s will know it takes same time to train the software to recognise your voice.

As is the case with many (if not most IT contracts), this will probably be prone to a myriad of deep set problems.

I agree 100% but they still seem to waste so much money, all governments do it but it seems the Tories love to waste tax payers money on a whim, it’s obcene how much they invest in crazy idea’s that end up a failure and eventually scrapped, each time it happens it’s like taking a sack of money and putting it straight on the bonfire.

So much of what is taking place since this coalition came into power we could not have even predicted in our wildest dreams, It’s as if they all write on a piece of paper, put it in a lucky-dip and then the cabinet member responsible will draw it out. ID cards could work but not in the case of this untrustworthy coalition, voice biometrics would be doomed before it started and opens up a number of legal issue’s.

I think we all dream for the clarity of rightness but in a polluted pool it can be hard to find any level of trust when the powers act without points of view. Much has been said about this idea and that but much of it will not happen or if it does it will eventually be scrapped and more money wasted on that bonfire, i reckon we know already who we should be blaming for
light wage packets and it’s certainly not the unemployed or mentally and physically disabled, they are probably the only people in the country who know what reality of day to day life truly is, amongst others who fall into that group too for different reasons.

That is true iMatt. I’ve done voice verification phone calls and often get told by a human or by a computer that I am not actually me. As I have ongoing chest infections and often flareups making it worse, flu, colds, coughs, breathing difficulty, mouth/throat infections… the computer or person does not recognise the voice print. Also the phones say I failed the security checks to prove I am me! Though the people KNOW I was meant to be recorded on their systems as having memory problems following having my head kicked in. Also that I have epilepsy and blackouts which are progressive. Also when I call callcentres I can’t hear/understand them and they can’t hear/understand me, Or automated machines do not recognise simple things even yes/no verbal answers as words. Computer identity systems online keep saying I am not me. It doesn’t help that my email got started by the Work Programme and one of their former (gone rogue?) staff has access to my email account.

People who this will really affect: deaf and hard of hearing; cerebral palsy, stroke, motor neurone disease; people with a mouth/throat cancer or injury, or those who get their tongue/jaw removed or jaw wired shut. People with a stammer or other speech problem. anyone recovering from medical/dental treatment if their mouth or throat swells up. People who have false teeth eg if they don’t have them in, or who lose teeth in an injury. Anyone whose voice changes at different times. People with accents etc (computer programmes don’t recognise it often). Even with an ‘English speaking British person’ manning a phone, they can be totally unable to understand you even when you call from an empty Jobcentre. And often you have no clue what they just said. Forget asking them anything local, as they can be hundreds or thousands of miles away. LOCAL JOBS is not in your region and sometimes not in the UK. For the banks it took ages to get a chip and signature card, after repeatedly pointing out to them I cannot remember the PIN. They keep telling me to bank online (no owned internet computer) or by phone (no phone, and can’t afford to ring their premium-rate line from a public urinal type phonebox even if it took calls from these). When I’ve called from the bank they generally say I am not me.
FARCEBOOK said the same and banned me from my own account on day 2 while I was still writing my profile. Actually if you get in a phone booth with a phone that works, and if you can reach the phone, dialling is each year a harder task due to increasing numbness and memory problems and blackouts.

If somebody cloned IDS’s accounts and pretended to be him, nicked his money or ordered stuff in his name how would he like it? And that is what he is setting people up for. Spam, ripoffs, conmen, phishing, viruses, identity thieves, blackmailers… (sorry for the less than charitable thought but following the bishops vote I thought the anti-women voters could do with being hijacked online by people saying,
in their name, that they are into stuff they are against.) Some tosser the other year (and not even from using the internet) managed to apply for a fake driving licence in my name with an older age and different birthday but directed mail to my address, I found out only when a letter arrived and it referred to me as a driver in their 40s etc. I told the DVLA but they did sweet smeg-all… it is obviously not me, as the DVLA are the ones who wrote the official documents confirming I am not allowed to drive due to epilepsy. So if this ‘fake me’ did a crime in a car, I could get the blame in theory, according to legal advice I got at the time, it has not been fixed. Actually please DON’T clone IDS as there is already one too many of him on the planet…

just had vision of IDS in hell (watched QT) in room of mirrors where he has to listen to his own speeches on a loop forever while being starving and cold, but he can’t turn it off or smash the mirrors.

Bar codes are so yesterday. I’m going to introduce QR codes that will be tattooed to each eyelid so everyone will know that you are a Jobcentre frequenting workshy peasant. I’m also going to introduce ankle tags so my minions can track your every movement to enforce the coming 35 Hour minimum job search requirement.

According to Douglas Adams: the terrible Vogon poet Grunthos the Flatulent (‘Ode to a small lump of green putty I found in my armpit one midsummer morning’), was starting to read from an epic poem when his intestine, to save the universe, jumped up and strangled his brain.
Wish this could happen with IDS.

IDS: Caution as exposure to IDS for more than 0.004 seconds can cause:
Despair, Suicidality, Homicidal tendencies, Sanity, Insanity, Nausea, Vomiting, Diarrhoea, etc. In severe cases it can result in Tories.

There is petri-dish-grown beef muscle fibre that can out-think IDS.

IDS said the disabled are exempt from benefit caps (on QT). Wrong. They are often on JSA, and the non-doctors get to redefine everyone as ‘not disabled’. DLA is being scrapped and replaced by PIP. ESA is mostly under work programme conditions like JSA. Councils are meant to waive or reduce council tax for disabled occupancy, but in practice don’t even record it even if you ARE disabled. ESA support group people can be kicked off it onto ESA WRAG; or even JSA, or off benefits completely. IDS likes rich people having lots of kids but not poor people doing the same. If you’re a disabled couple you may well have disabled kids with the same condition. £26,000 or £28,000 is not much to live on if that is what your RENT costs. And council tax, water, gas, electric, other bills. And running the car they want us all to have so we can get to all these mystery ‘jobs’ (see ‘hunting the Snark’). If you are then kicked off benefits into destitution or work you can be evicted or in debt as if you get a job paying less, you lose HB and need to pay rent from money that is less then your previous total ‘minimum to survive on’ payment from benefits. Landlords set rents and it is hard to even find places to rent even if you could afford to buy. Buying a house would mean you had assets they can take off you, you are told to use up everything then ask for benefits. Then they say ‘the poor are useless, they have no savings or assets’. Yeah, cause you lot took ’em – before we could even get permission to join the back of a queue for a pittance we might not get.
To move into a local boarded up house is ‘squatting’ of course. They say they lack millions in the NHS. The government has millions/billions of technically the people’s money, ‘free’ to spend on bombs and guns. Food banks: no use where they don’t exist.

This is all about automation, get rid of the people let the machine tell people. Atos computers, takes the human equation out of it, automatic job search first machines in job centre instead of cards, now Universal jobs match, less need of people to input things. once they do biometrics/voice recognition, they can get rid of the other staff. No staff means no wages, means no strikes for better conditions. Then they may say oh people are losing their cards, so lets may microchips so people cant lose them, why not tattoo it on them as well.. maybe on the forehead or hand?? then they may say lets get your DNA, link it with seeing if you will have a potential genetic disease or a carrier.

and before people say no it wont happen, people are being refused insurance because of their genes, Microchipping pets so that you can find them, GPS tracking of mobile phones, If we are not very careful we will enter a work that is 1984/brave new world.

It seems they never miss an opportunity to snoop on the poor, but when it comes to the rich, snooping on their tax evasion is completely taboo. I know which of those two would pay for itself in no time at all.

“The reason most of these idea’s don’t work as intended or crash and become unusable, is because our government always goes for the cheapest bidder to build this crap, therefore they get crap!”

Sadly all to often true! However, as we are seeing with the failing WP, projects done on the cheap end up costing considerably more due to having to throw ever more cash at the shortfalls, cock-ups and errors invevitably made.

I’m amazed he wants to show his face on there, some nice ripe tomatoes would not go wrong, trouble with that show it’s under controlled conditions and the audience can often be unbalanced, there will be few poor or mentally and physically disabled people there, maybe a couple who will be told to behave themselves or they will be ejected like kids. Not sure if i want to hear what he has to say, i will end up throwing the tv out the window. He has nothing he can say because his actions speak louder than any words that come out of his mouth, probably be full of working middle class people brainwashed into thinking their pay packets are lighter each month because people who are mentally and physically disabled are taking it from them..WRONG.. it was rich elitists with their snouts in the trough for too long, the very type who would love to time travel back when we adopted an imperialist mentality across countries and only after servants could take no more they woke to find them standing over their beds at night with a machette, did it all start to crumble, there are still pockets of people like that who have the servents out and in a line for role-call each morning, then suddenly they ahve been found hacked to pieces like dog meat… i cannot begin to wonder why.🙂

I do not think I can watch it – the tv would end up smashed.
I have a feeling he will be smug and have the audience agreeing with him at the end that more benefit cuts are needed and everyone out of work is workshy lazy and does not want to work. The audience will agree and the daily mail readers will love it on the write up tommorow.

Did you notice they only allowed a window of about 15 minutes towards the end to mention the subject, that was a clever move simply to avoid any discontent coursing through the entire show, but then this is the BBC we are talking about who employ ATOS to oversee their IT department, it was amazing they allowed that undercover Panorama programme on ATOS to be broadcast a while back. Here it is, it all kicks off about this point in the programme.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01p2wbj/?t=49m19s

If you are not happy with question time phone up the BBC and say so, you pay you tv licence so are entitled to a say and an unbiased political programme – I’m always complaining to them, the more the merrier.

Why would he be angry, he is jubilant at all the suffering he is causing and probably will be very smug indeed, lapping up all the praise from the government stooges put in the audience to bow down to him and worship him.
Most of the audience were probably commissioned from Sun readers, and Torygraph readers, so all will be wanking themselves silly over IDS’s talk about perscecuting the unemployed, just like the Germans did over Hitler murdering the Jews.
People are so blinkered to their own greed and selfishness these days, that they couldnt give a stuff about those less fotunate than they are.

For once this is where i diverge from my anger with government and their policies leading us back into a weird technological stoneage. I know sometimes it comes down to Rich v Poor and how the rich got their money and why the poor are poor without opportunity to climb the prospects ladder a little… try and keep poor down and they will take you down, money does not come into it, at the end of it all it’s about Right and Wrong.

In principle i have no issues against ID cards.. i never have even when the labour government started on that road, my belief is that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear but how they are used IS a key issue and on what grounds they are being issued, i’m not convinced they would put a stop to illegal immigration or economical migrants. If all ID cards are simply nothing more than a variation of a star of david stuck on your coat allowing at the drop of an hat their presentation like we live in an enemy occupied country then it is very wrong. I don’t trust this coalition in any shape or form and i’m sure ID Cards would be abused and used for ulterior motivates and cost the country loads of money yet again.

Wonder how long it will be before the Chancellor introduces a walking tax or the old window tax forcing home owners to brick up so many windows because it became expensive.. hence many old buildings with bricked up windows….if you ever wondered what that was all about.. that is why. We don’t want to be going back to the dark ages, i already feel like we’re living in the early 80s again and how long before we are back to the 70’s!.. difference then it was in many cases we were kids and it was our parents who had to endure those times, in 21st century i will not accept the stinking rich being too greedy and getting us in this position and the rich again blaming the less well off, mentally and physically disabled for the the dilemma, worse thing now is there are many tories controlling the hiring and firing of our police forces around the country even though labour wrestled back quite a large percentage themselves. I have little love for most of the parties but i would always go with the less of two evils, much less one who was not even democratically voted in with a majority and another party who would never get close, but in a crazy time that little rat on the back of the tories is the only thing stopping them walking right across democracy and human rights which are just signed pieces of paper with little significance because they want to be a law unto themsleves.

You say that you have no opposition to ID cards in principle, and then go on to outline how a system like that could, and probably eventually would be misused. That is why, in principle ID cards were opposed. As for having nothing to hide, well that depends, I can envisage a lot of situations whereby at the present time an individual would have nothing to hide, but get the wrong government in power in the future and all that could change.

There is a crisis in our political system, and it’s closely tied to the very idea of democracy, or more correctly, representative democracy. Our representatives by and large only represent themselves. Had we a more decentralised form of democracy based on participatory democracy things could be very different, especially if anyone representing localities was regarded as a delegate in centralised federal assemblies, told what they will say, and subject to immediate recall if they do the bidding of a party elite as opposed to that of their electorate.

Democracy in the UK is slowly being erroded day to day, eventually i have no doubt it will just be a word used to describe a time long gone as the tories put it to the sword and watch it bleed out without a care in the world in doing so. In an Idealistic political climate ID cards could work but it’s far too late now and costs too much, so much has been wasted on this already and cost a fortune, with the desire for this government to have control of people almost mind body and soul it’s no surprise they look at this and other options, it’s all so worrying really in the 21st century and so retrograde in their policies.

Idealistic societies don’t exist, and if they did, they’d still be undesirable because by their very nature they would be tyrranical – i.e. one person’s or one group’s idea of an ‘ideal’ society, also known as utopias. ID cards are never a good idea, and most of us have plenty of ways of establishing exactly who we are using several methods which each corroborate the other. ID cards only ever make it easier for the state to control us. We need to get rid of the state by abolishing it as redundant. ID cards are the wet dream of control freaks, and always establish very dubious precedents. In a benign regime they may. like store loyalty cards, offer some benefits, but at a cost of the holder losing quite a bit more freedom. ID cards require administrative procedures using data management systems – now computers are used, but in Nazi Germany a mechanised system produced by the German subsiduary of IBM was used to administer the ID card system under that regime, and was central to the ease with which Jews were identified and utimately murdered. Quite simply, if there is no ID system. it can’t be abused. What I find particularly scary is that oragnisations supposedly opposed to a surveillance society such as No2ID, BigBrotherWatch and Which? are colluding with the government on this. The only principled and tenable position, in my opinion, is no association whatsoever.

I know Big Brother Watch is under the umbrella of the right-wing Taxpayers Alliance but how does No2ID collude with the government on ID cards? Touting for their preferred system? – please explain! Not sure where which is coming from but wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.

Cutting benefits will eventually bear testament that it will not save as much as they think or would have us believe. Being no jobs will mean crime increases meaning more court cases and more people going to prison, more people will be made homeless and requiring bed and breakfast, that will cost tax payers a fortune, Atos has cost 100 million for starters, there are so many situations where tax payer will end up paying far more than if they simply reviewed the welfare state and simply weeded out those who are claiming but are not entitled, not chucking the baby out with the bath water with a series of retrograde welfare reforms that would be snarled at decades ago let-alone in the 21st century with “one-size fits all” barmy assault on those who cannot defend themselves. It’s rather like a fit boxer punching an elderly man to the ground and holding his hands up in victory as if he had defeated the greatest opponent ever, as the misguided crowd cheer and clap their approval.

“my belief is that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear”

Ahhh, but the problem there IS that most of us DO have something to hide. It’s called PRIVACY. After all, why do most home have curtains or blinds? Why do we password protect out PC’s? Why have people outside the business community started to buy document shredders over the past 10 years?

ID cards are just the external manifestation of the issue. The real dangers are twofold. One is the backend system / database to which the ID card is attatched. For example, just who designed, programmed and will be administering it?

The second is as you say how they are used. The term mission / function creep comes to mind. A system designed to do one thing ends up performing a multitude of tasks simply because the IT infrastructure is now in place which allows this to happen.

Unlitmately, one has to ask, “do I implicitly trust the govt, esp one with such an ideological agenda?”

every one in the uk should just close there facebook and twitter accounts just to piss them off. she can have access to my FB pages as there is nothing on it.

they may as well jsut roll out a national ID card scheme and kick out all the immigrants who enter illegally or come here to scrounge from the benefit system Australia have things running properly why dont we do what they do. we don’t because we are in bed with so many other countrys lke america who want to evade and stick there noses into other peopels business and think they are the worlds police, and for what i here you say its all for OIL among other things.

if my numbers on the loto come up i will emigrate to Australia and leave this craphole of a united kingdom behind me for ever.

The White ruling elite want to put you under total surveillance and all you’re focused on and worried about is scrouging immigrants. It’s all the immigrants fault!🙄 Christ in heaven! The media has got the British people so well indoctrinated.

What was that shite Iain Duncan Shite said on Question TIme: [to Owen Jones]: “We’ve heard plenty from you, we’ve had 2 and a half million people who have been invisible for 10 years and we are getting them back to work and I am proud of that”. What a cunt!

Just sent an email to Q. Time regarding the unbalanced nature of the programme & the complete refusal to allow anyone the chance to talk about “the mix of changes” Yvette Cooper alluded to in passing. (The programme was allegedly coming from the “home of free speech”). No opportunity for quiet man to explain his rationale (not that he would have done so) or for him to be challenged in any way – if it wasn’t so serious it would be funny.

Having Drunken Smith on QT was a total waste of time. He should have been pinned down & taken to task about the destruction of the benefits system. Instead a question about this was tacked on at the end, almost as an afterthought. Well done to the woman who heckled him- he got red in the face & was on the verge of losing his temper,gave a glimpse of the real person under the smooth exterior, a nasty, psychopathic bully

At least on the radio version on Any Answers (the radio version) of Question Time which is live, Dumbleebee’s brother Jonathan lets “hecklers” have their say. Dumbleebee should have let that woman heckler have a go at Drunken Smith, if nothing else if would have made for good telly, or maybe he did and it was “edited” out.

What are WE going to do about all this? Many seem to have an idea that voting Labour when we next have the chance will change things! Let’s not forget that they started it all, and certainly could have done a lot more to make it extremely difficult for the Tory bastards to bring in these draconian changes. It is down to us now, we need to start organising. If Labour were seriously opposed to anything that these Tory shits are doing they’d be going for the political jugular, doing loads of research to uncover every bit of Tory sleaze and attempting to undermine the Tories at every opportunity. I’m not a statist, (I happen to think that we should be doing all these things ourselves, so that we truly own those agencies we need, see the government try taking them off us then) but I do despair about true opposition to evil, which is what this present government is. Just where are the latterday Nye Bevans and Tony Benns of this world?

We need a completely new kind of society, one based on justice where we organise our own lives, owning all those things and institutions that we need to ensure a civilised life for all. We need to get talking, organising and acting.

It’s not enough to embarass the government, or their colluding buddies the Labour party, we need to get them out of government and into a safe place where they can do no harm.

IDS has now shown the public his true nasty side on what he actually thinks (LIVE) on Question Time, regarding anyone claiming benefits, he was almost snarling, on the very edge of swearing (I really wish he had).

It was like, HOW DARE YOU QUESTION WHAT I’M DOING. – Did you notice right at the end as the credits were going up, he was looking down at the desk as if to say – Damn I really shouldn’t have done that – well IDS IT’S TOO LATE NOW – every viewer saw you and will now be drawing their own conclusions.

And so you continue to be a massive embarassment to David Cameron and the Conservative Party – how much longer can it be before your kicked out? – I really think you need to ask yourself this after last night’s fiasco.

Oh by the way IDS – you better get used to this sort of questioning because there’s gonna be a hell of a lot more of it coming your way from now on.

I want to say a big thank you to Owen Jones for saying what needed to be said to Iain Duncan Smith (we all would like to have the chance to question IDS on welfare reforms, but most of us will never get such an oppotunity)

Remember the terrible weather yesterday? I felt sick for 2 days and having had no food, but went out anyway as it was Work Programme. Could not do my 2 hour walk as the route was flooded. Could not get a bus as most were cancelled due to the floods. Attempted to get in touch but could not get to a computer to email anybody and had no money for phone. Saw friends and strangers stranded overnight unable to reach refugee centres set up by cops. Did not get to Work Programme as a result of the floods. Took till after half past ten last night to get home.
Thought I’d go to Work Programme this morning to explain, but then got the
worst possible news, and was in no fit state to do anything. Missed 2 college buses then dragged myself into college on next bus, arriving half an hour late as the bus was late then delayed. Not in a good state all day, though did my best at college. Afterwards I ran for the first bus home, which was late and then got stuck in traffic and more floods. So I missed the connecting bus to Work Programme. Caught the next one and arrived at 4:30. They’d previously told me they work till 5 and that if I was sick one day I could come any other day before 5. They know I’m disabled and that it is a hassle to get there. As soon as I arrived I was yelled at by a guy for coming there! He threw me out immediately and would not even let me say a single word of explanation. I walked at speed in the rain to the jobcentre and had to tell the security guard what happened. I explained about the floods. On Monday they want me to go back to Jobcentre and Work Programme, but I also have to travel to a separate town to ask the council why they have cut c.£13 from my HB per week. My bad news this morning was so bad it outweighed everything else, but lumped together all the things were loads worse. Nobody confirmed if WP was even OPEN during the floods. Roads were closed or gridlocked or flooded; buses and trains were cancelled: there were power cuts; most of the high street closed down.
The JCP want to stop my JSA, for being unable to get through 2 miles of floods. It will (even if my benefits are not stopped) be the 3rd month in a row my rent will be late and paid in bits. So I could be told to leave… And there is nothing to buy food with even by saving all to put it towards the rent. I could buy food with money earmarked for rent next week but the benefits account has no overdraft facility, you can’t take out what’s not yet arrived. If we get a power cut there isn’t any food that doesn’t need cooking, and this (scum-brand pasta) is about to run out. Money owed to people goes unpaid. A different shop has pasta for 29p. 6 days for
57p. Of course you need something to put on the pasta and that costs more than the pasta (cheese, butter, ketchup).

I’d swap places with IDS but I don’t know how to be a Tory arsewipe.
(Reason not applying for this job: ‘I lack the necessary skill set’)
Really IDS ought to try living on benefits and being hassled by the government every week. He is totally clueless on ordinary life.
IDS should try not eating. Simple things like filling in forms get harder after 3 days without food. I ate Thursday, Sunday and Tuesday, and then on the floods day on Thursday. Next meal due Saturday night but not sure where it will come from. Food bank said, ‘you are not in enough need and by the way nobody donated any food’. Tried next county but they said ‘you live in a different county’.

There is a wonderful recipe book by Solzhenitsyn (The Diary of Ivan Denisovitch). Two recipes in it include nettle soup and grass soup. No nettles here so grass soup it will be. Maybe I could smear a bit of ketchup on my benefit book? Or fry the letter about Work Programme in some butter (with a big pinch of salt..)? Earlier this year I ate willow leaves for a day. Unfortunately no leaves on trees now. Nothing edible in bins here. Morrisons have a macaroni cheese for 75p, the economy version, it is crap but the problem is 2 are £1.50 and 4 are £3. 8, for £6.
I don’t have £6. Or is IDS saying he expects me as dole scum to fulfil his prophecy about us and mug some old lady so SHE starves instead? Luckily for old ladies everywhere, and for the continuation of the vital status of the IDS in its current form, I am a vegetarian pacifist.
I’ve just looked at my wallet. I have 18 pence to my name. OMG, I’m rich!

This won’t buy any item of food but it won’t buy any smack or plasma wide screen TVs either, the stuff they think we buy with our dole. when I do have money it goes on food after paying for rent and bills and debts.
I don’t drink or smoke or take drugs, or gamble. if I even had that kind of money I’d buy food, probably including some actual fruit and vegetables.

And people said they wouldnt tag people this is in america but the uk soon follows http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20461752 US school tag tracker project prompts court row A court challenge has delayed plans to expel a Texan student for refusing to wear a radio tag that tracked her movements.

Religious reasons led Andrea Hernandez to stop wearing the tag that revealed where she was on her school campus.

The tags were introduced to track students and help tighten control of school funding

Won’t be long before the Atlantic Bridge Tories introduce that here, starting with of course, the usual guinea pigs, social pariahs and hate figures the unemployed, sick and disabled, to supposedly prevent us from committing benefit fraud. The legislation is probably already being drafted as we speak. These fuckers are using Orwell’s warning as an instruction manual.

Not much consolation but my heart goes out to you. I hope ids and all the scum bags that work in the job centre or on the work programmes are pleased with what they have subjected people to, especially the young like you, still at college, disabled who have never been given a chance in life. At least people of my age have known better and kinder times than the one we are living in now.

I am indeed pleased Guy, very much so. I like nothing better than squishing the faces of the unemployed into the shit on the soles of my shoes. My future plans for you dole scrounging scum will have me spunking in my pants!

[with thanks to Tony Collins and Campaign for Change for permission to repost] Capita’s share price has fallen to a new 10-year low today (8 December 2016) after chief executive Andy Parker warned that “near-term headwinds” would hit trading performance in the first half of 2017. The company’s share price of 513p at lunchtime today was 9%… Continue Reading C […]

Devastation writes, SERIOUSLY BAD NEWS Sharp readers will remember the plan announced in 2015 to shrink the “estate” of the DWP by 20% over the next few years. Well, here are some examples of this move in Glasgow – where a whopping HALF of all Jobcentres will close!!!!!! This is devastating news, because thousands of […]

Report by CJ6.30PM-8.30PM Monday 21st Nov 2016 Unite Housing Workers and Social Housing Residents meeting. Only 6 people including CJ and Tim B. Discussed problems with social housing providers for workers and tenants, so in both our interests to get together. Another meeting pencilled in for 30thJan 2017. Nice coffees and luxury biscuits.Noon-1.15pm Weds 23 […]

Today, Netpol supporters received our November 2016 newsletter in their email in-boxes. It is now also available online here. If you would like to receive future email updates, sign up to Netpol’s ‘announcements’ list here. We would also like to ask for your help: if you think the work we undertake is important and worth … The post Read our November 2016 new […]